Atlantic City’s Revenue Woes Continued in September

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Monday, October 14th, 2013 | Written by Shane Larson

In what has become an all too familiar refrain for Atlantic City’s struggling casino industry, the September revenue figures showed a decrease of 13 percent when compared to September of 2012, reports Connecticut news source The Day.

Revenue down nearly ten percent for the year so far

According to The Day, the city was hoping that the September numbers would be buoyed by the Miss America Pageant. While Atlantic City’s casinos did report an uptick in visitors during the month, many directly related to the Miss America show, unfortunately for Atlantic City more traffic did not convert to more revenue.

For 2013 so far, Atlantic City’s gambling revenue is down 9.3 percent from 2012 numbers. Atlantic City has long been struggling to shore up its declining revenue, much of it lost over state lines as nearby Pennsylvania, Maryland, and other states along the East coast add more casino properties that offer newer and better amenities than some of Atlantic City’s time-worn properties.

One bright side, however, is the fact that state regulators expect that numbers in October and November will be better over those of last year, but only because during those months in 2012, the region was still dealing with the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy, meaning that far fewer visitors than normal came through the doors of Atlantic City casinos in October and November of 2012. So while there is likely to be an improvement, the numbers are not likely to reflect a genuine improvement for the city’s flagging casino economy.

Will regulated iGaming help reverse the trend?

While the story of down revenue in Atlantic City’s dozen land-based casinos is, unfortunately, nothing new, what is new is that the state will soon be permitting residents to access real-money online poker and other forms of Internet-based wagering. Many are predicting that iGaming will be the ailing city’s savior, with high estimates putting the revenue potential of New Jersey’s online betting market at $1 billion in yearly take.

Whether that prediction proves accurate remains to be seen. New Jersey’s nascent iGaming industry is set to get underway next month, with the New Jersey Department of Gaming Enforcement having scheduled the official launch on November 26 at 9 a.m. local time. Before any company can launch the publicly-accessible version of its betting web site, however, it will first need to do a soft launch.

The soft launch period is to last for five days, during which time only invited players will be able to use the sites, which will be heavily monitored by gaming regulators. Thus, any site wishing to launch on the November 26 start date will actually enter into soft launch mode on November 21.

So far the only company to have received official licensing approval by New Jersey regulators is The Borgata, owned in joint partnership by MGM and Boyd Gaming. The Borgata, considered to be Atlantic City’s toniest hotel/casino property, has partnered with bwin.party, one of the most recognizable brands in the European online gambling business, to operate its U.S.-facing iGaming site in the state of New Jersey.